Rachael Mendohlson, an 11-year-old who lives in Quail Hollow, says her life is pretty idyllic.
âIâm blessed and lucky to live on a beautiful ranch with my parents and sister,â she says, where she helps care for 40 chickens, 20 cows, five cats and two rabbits.
Thatâs why, when she heard about a kid her age in Kansas who provided gifts to children staying in a homeless shelter, she thought she could do something similar in her community.
Rachael asked her dad, Lane, to help her get started.
Lane sought out a family shelter in Pasco County and found out that Rachaelâs timing couldnât have been better, as the countyâs very first shelter that accommodates families is opening this month in Port Richey.
Rachaelâs plan was to pack new backpacks with toys and activities so that kids arriving at the shelter would be greeted with a bag full of new items just for them.
To fund her idea, she planned to use one dollar from every dozen eggs she and her sister sold from their egg business.
Thatâs where Lane stepped in again, offering that his company, Vantagepoint AI, would pay for the backpacks and toys so that Rachael could have enough funds to make an impact quickly, making a donation that would pay for 70 backpacks, along with toys and activities to fill the backpacks.
Rachael and her sister, 8-year-old Abby, sorted the toys by age and packed all of the bags themselves, including items such as coloring books, colored pencils, a book, fidget toys, and magnetic drawing toys for the younger kids, while choosing items such as a watch and a hat for older kids.
âBeing a girl and going to school, I know Pop Its fidget toys are very popular,â she said, âso I made sure to include a lot of those.â
In early October, Rachael was invited to bring her donations to the new shelter and speak to invited guests at the shelterâs opening ceremony.
She said that if she can do something good to bring someone else happiness, thatâs what she wants to do.
âI hope a kid will see the backpack and think, âOh my gosh, someone really cares about me,â and that will give a little spark to make someone happy,â Rachael says.
Lane says he wants to pass on what learned from his parents to the next generation. âI want to instill those values of gratitude and giving people a hand when they need it in my own daughters,â Lane says. âItâs so important that they grow up that way.â
It seems heâs doing just that, as Lane says that Abby has expressed interest in finding her own way to give back, thanks to her inspiring older sister.
âGiving back is my way of saying thank you,â Rachael says, âbecause Iâm grateful that I have such an amazing life.â
The scene that started it all for âGrand Hampton: The Movie Series,â with Antony Capers and his son Merric.
A strange alien-like creature is chained to the wall. Four kids lay motionless on the floor, marked with blood. A menacing woman in a white lab coat steps over them to talk to a baby girl dangling from the ceiling. A light fog flows through the scene.
This is just a regular Wednesday or Thursday night in the Grand Hampton garage of 45-year-old Antony Capers, where, on this night, he is filming another episode of his quirky, campy, creepy â and even funny â web video series that has much of his community buzzing.
Capers, a freelance designer who owns his own production company, Reelistic Tales, is an accomplished painter, graphic designer and has even written and illustrated childrenâs books. He also is the creator of âGrand Hampton: The Movie Series.â
He says the series, which so far has posted 17 episodes and can be viewed on YouTube by searching for âGrand Hampton Movie,â has changed his life. The series has 151 subscribers, and roughly 6,000 total views. A party was held in the Grand Hampton clubhouse for the Season 2 premiere.
He doesnât get paid to do the show â a new episode is posted each Monday â but he says it has brought him the kind of joy that is priceless.
âItâs really a labor of love for me,â Capers says. âIâve met so many of my neighbors, and itâs become a close-knit production of new friends.â
What began as a short 45-second clip morphed into a series of short episodes filmed exclusively in Grand Hampton, starring only the communityâs residents.
âItâs like my Hollywood playground back here,â says Capers, a Queens, NY native.
Which is not how it all began. His initial 45-second clip of his son Merric staring out across a lake in a trance, pointing at something only he could see, was done for Capersâ portfolio.
But, he decided to post the clip on Grand Hamptonâs community Facebook page for fun, and the rest, as they say, is history.
âEverybody who commented asked what Merric was looking at, and not to leave them hanging,â Capers said.
So, he didnât. He shot two more episodes with his son, basing the story on an idea that has been bouncing around his head for years â where a community that is comprised entirely of people in the witness protection program is used to harvest the lungs of those who wonât be missed.
Antony recruits another neighbor to join the cast.
With requests for more episodes, Capers started asking for community volunteers to play roles in the production.
Richard Villarino was first, playing a neighbor in Episode 3 concerned that children were disappearing.
Another neighbor, Annette Simmons-Brown, sent in a head shot and, perhaps because her bald head (at the time) gave her a more minacious look, was pegged to be the evil Dr. Annette, the harvester of kidsâ lungs, a few episodes later.
âI donât know why he picked me…but Iâm glad he did,â Simmons-Brown says. âItâs been so much fun. If I had to rate the whole experience on a scale of 1-to-10, Iâd give it a 15.â
Taabish Ajaney, a 15-year-old North Tampa Christian Academy student, messaged Antony on Facebook looking for a role. He landed a part, but also has extensive editing experience and has taken on the role of intern, helping shoot many of the scenes.
Julia Rees, a 26-year-old medical school student, donned a red hood, black makeup streaked across her face and a 10-inch knife while emerging in the Season 1 finale as a mysterious hero…or perhaps a villain.
âHe just said Iâd be a bad ass,â says Rees. âIâm not sure where the character is going, but Iâm along for the ride.â
Roughly 50 neighbors, many who gathered to watch the filming of the latest episode, have played roles. Kelly and Lura Mulroy and Latasha Scurry play television anchors, Henry Scurry is convincing â and arguably the best actor in the series â as the head bad guy, and Ishban Howard has played multiple roles, including one as the chained up alien.
Nicole Reber is another bad guy who made her debut recently in Season 2, Episode 3, and her three children â Ashton, Dylan and Skyla â were all snatched by the aliens in the same episode. Others have helped build sets and set up other scenes, while Capersâ next door neighbor Chace Scurry not only played a part, but her infant daughter Jahnai was the one dangling from the ceiling while mom nervously looked on. âCan you believe she let me do that?,â Capers says, chuckling.
Jordan Caviggia read about the show on Facebook, and brought his son Jaxon, 9, to the most recent shoot, where he played one of the children in the garage.
âIt sounded like itâs a fun time, and I thought Jaxon would enjoy it,â Jordan said.
Capers thanked him for showing up, and asked the elder Caviggia if he was interested in having a part, too. Five days later, Caviggia filmed a scene playing the head of a newsroom.
âThis has really ended up being about bringing people together,â he says. âItâs not about the show. I mean, thereâs a story there, but itâs about community. Itâs weird, and itâs a weird thing thatâs happening, and I love it.â
Would Capers love for his show to catch the eye of a Hollywood executive? Of course.
âIf not, Iâll just keep filming with my friends,â he says.
The local office of Visiting Angels on N. 56th St. in Temple Terrace includes (l.-r.) office assistant Yesenia Diaz, director Christal Becton, client coordinators Wendy Blackmon and Kim Robinson and billing specialist Kim Fair. (Photo: Charmaine George)
When families realize they need a helping hand with an aging parent or grandparent or a disabled family member, they want to turn to someone they can trust to provide care and share their burden.
In New Tampa, Temple Terrace and surrounding areas, that need is being met by Visiting Angels, located on N. 56th St. in Temple Terrace, only minutes from most of New Tampa.
Visiting Angels provides services as an alternative to moving into a nursing home, retirement center or assisted living facility, allowing people to maintain the independence of their daily routines in the comfort of their own homes.
A nationally branded company, headquartered in Pennsylvania, Visiting Angels has 600 locations across the U.S.
Franchise owner and director Christal Becton opened the local office of Visiting Angels in 2004.
âWeâve been a staple in the community for 17 years now,â she says, adding that the close-knit group of five people who work in the office give personal attention and care to every family who reaches out to them when they need assistance.
âMost of our referrals are seniors who need some extra help,â Christal explains. âWe also can help anyone over 18 who needs assistance. Younger people sometimes need help, too, due to their own physical challenges or health issues.â
Visiting Angels caregivers provide home care services, companion care, personal care and respite care. This can include anything from helping someone temporarily recover from an illness or surgery to providing ongoing companionship to a senior who just needs a friend.
The Visiting Angels home health care aides accommodate their clientsâ schedules, whether they need a few hours of assistance a week or even 24-hour-per-day, 7-day-per-week care. Day or night, weekends or holidays, temporary or long-term, Visiting Angels can help.
Director Christal Becton
Caregivers include both Certified Nursing Assistants (CNAs) and Home Health Assistants (HHAs). All caregivers have passed a background screening, and most are graduates of medical academies that specialize in home care and also have worked at assisted living facilities or in other health care environments.
Typical care might include grocery shopping and running errands, preparing meals, assisting with personal care and doing light housekeeping.
Christal says some clients require help with bathing or shaving, some just need a hand getting up in the morning and starting their day, while others may need their clothes laundered and linens changed.
Pandemic Assistance & More
With the coronavirus pandemic still ongoing, these continue to be unprecedented times. Over the past 18 months, Christal and the members of her office staff delivered essentials to seniors in New Tampa, even if they werenât clients. They called it âno-contact Saturday,â delivering essentials without contact, to minimize any possibility of spreading the virus to someone who might be particularly vulnerable.
While the local Visiting Angels office is no longer doing no-contact Saturdays, calls from clients who are in need of food, meals, or shopping are still being accepted. The Visiting Angels often provide those services, but also are happy to refer families to services that may help them with these tasks, such as Instacart.
âWe give a lot of advice to members of the community,â she says.
The office staff currently is getting ready for the annual Thanksgiving distribution, where staffers take meals from local restaurants and deliver them to everyone on the companyâs registry who lives alone or has no family expected to join them for the holiday.
Getting Started
The first step to hiring Visiting Angels is a free, in-home assessment, which Christal personally handles. âI like to make a connection with the family. I get to see how they live and learn about their backgrounds, which makes it easier to connect them with the right caregiver.â
She says this is important to communicate to the family that she takes pride in her company and in the quality of care that will be provided.
âMost everyone has heard of Visiting Angels if they watch television, but people are often blown away that the owner of the company showed up in their home. They think that if the owner comes to my house to talk with me, then thatâs a company I want to take care of my mom.â
During the in-home assessment, Christal reviews each clientâs needs and asks about the types of services desired, noting the patientâs daily routine, meals, proximity to doctorsâ offices and number of regularly scheduled appointments. She then prepares a care plan and selects the caregivers who are best suited to meet those needs.
Transportation To Appointments
In addition to in-home care, Visiting Angels provides transportation to doctorâs appointments and medical treatments.
Unlike other services, Visiting Angels caregivers do not leave the appointment, but will wait on-site until the appointment is concluded. Once the patient is delivered safely home, post-op care can be provided, as well, if desired.
Christal says this service is not typical, and that it relieves any stress someone may feel, wondering if a ride is coming to get them and how long theyâll have to wait. Having the Visiting Angels transportation waiting for them means patients donât have to wait or wonder, or experience any undue anxiety about how to get to their medical appointment(s).
Visiting Angelsâ transportation is not just for seniors. While seniors often take advantage of the services, anyone can use it.
Christal says many of the rides she gives are to and from plastic surgery appointments, anything from cosmetic facial surgeries, to tummy tucks and liposuction.
âOur office works very closely with a number of plastic surgery centers in the Tampa Bay area,â she says. âThe patients or even the surgery centers call us to schedule and they tell me Visiting Angels is one of the few providing this service.â
Christal says many people donât want to ask a friend or family member for a hand, especially when it comes to a plastic surgery appointment. She and her team are happy to help anyone who would prefer the discretion of using Visiting Angels if any post-appointment care or transportation is needed.
The Visiting Angels office serving New Tampa is at 9812 N. 56th St. in Temple Terrace. For more information, call (813) 929-7067 or visit VisitingAngels.com/Tampa or Facebook.com/VisitingAngelsTampaFL.
When classically trained chef Anass El-Omari and his wife Susana Herrera purchased Lexington Oaks Golf Club about three years ago, I was excited about the prospect of having another real restaurant in Wesley Chapel.
And, although Anass at first revamped the existing golfer-oriented menu at the golf courseâs restaurant, which he re-named Omariâs Grille, he ended up scaling back his everyday offerings of fresh fish, pasta and filet mignon, and has kept the menu smaller and simpler since reopening Omariâs after the Covid-19 pandemic shut it down for a few months in 2020.
But now, while Omariâs regular menu is still mainly comprised of burgers, sandwiches, wings and other fast, simple foods favored by the golfers who frequent his completely renovated golf course, Anass has brought back some of the dishes I loved on his original Omariâs menu as specials on Friday evenings.
Anass loves both cooking and talking about cooking. So, in conjunction with this article, we recorded our second âCooking With Anassâ segment that was released a few days before this issue arrived in your mailbox, where he made an amazing Cajun pasta (above), with both Andouille sausage and top sirloin steak in a semi-spicy cream sauce thatâs as good as anything youâll find in any fine dining establishment.
Now that things have gotten a little more normal in this Covid-crazy world, people are again looking for great places to host events like weddings, quinceañeras, baby showers, anniversary parties and even memorial gatherings and you canât go wrong if you host your next event for 20-80 people at Lexington Oaks.
Omariâs offers a complete appetizer catering menu â featuring burger sliders, mini-croissants stuffed with chicken and tuna salad and more â as well as a sit-down dinner menu for events, so you can serve London broil with mushroom sauce, orange chicken and a variety of shrimp dishes, plus a dessert bar. Anass and his staff also can custom-design pretty much anything else youâd want to serve.
And, while the indoor space currently is limited to 80 people, Anass says he plans to extend the room out to the existing patio area, so that up to 120 people could fit in the air conditioned, indoor space. And, there is an additional covered outdoor space that can fit another 60 or so people.
âI think Wesley Chapel really needs an event space like this,â Anass says, âand the food will always be good. âPlus, we have the area down by the water (photo above) for weddings (as in the photo above) and the people love it.â
Omariâs Grill at Lexington Oaks Golf Club (16333 Lexington Oaks Blvd.) is open Wednesday & Thursday, 11 a.m.-7:30 p.m., 11 a.m.-7:30 p.m. on Friday, 11 a.m., and 11 a.m.-4 p.m. on Saturday & Sunday. For additional information, call (813) 929-4217, visit LexingtonOaksGolf.com. Or, call the golf courseâs main number â (813) 907-7270 â to talk to a catering specialist about scheduling, and designing a menu for, your event.
Dr. Sam Jureyda, or Dr. J as his patients call him, has been a slam dunk for those looking for the perfect smile at his Radiance Orthodontics in Tampa Palms. (Photos: Courtesy of Radiance Orthodontics)
When Sam Jureyda, D.M.D. (Doctor of Dental Medicine), opened his Radiance Orthodontics more than five years ago in Tampa Palms, he often said his practice provided âmodern orthodontics for all ages.â
He hardly could have imagined how much the term âmodern orthodonticsâ would have evolved since then.
âOrthodontics is a rapidly-changing, dynamic specialty that offers kids, teens and adults more options than ever before,â Dr. Jureyda explains. âBut, that also makes it confusing for patients.â
This happy orthodontist, whose job it is to straighten and align teeth and jaws, has practiced for more than 25 years. Before moving into private practice in 2006 â and subsequently opening Radiance Orthodontics in 2016 â he taught graduate-level students at the University of Buffalo, after earning his D.M.D. degree from the Boston University School of Dental Medicine and his Certificate of Specialty in Orthodontics from the Howard University College of Dentistry in Washington, D.C.
Dr. J, as his patients call him, says everyone who is considering their options for improving the alignment of their teeth and bite can benefit from the free consultation offered at Radiance Orthodontics.
âEach patient has unique needs and requires a personalized and completely custom treatment plan,â he says. âWe can help you understand your many options and choose the best course of treatment for yourself or your children.â
At the complimentary, no-obligation consultation, Dr. J will provide a thorough examination and recommend either traditional braces or Invisalign. The choice, however, is still up to the patient, and Dr. J will help you understand the pros and cons of each type of treatment.
Even traditional braces continue to evolve and use better technologies, and are typically available in either metal or clear ceramic. Dr. J also can work with patients if they have a specific request, such as someone who recently asked for gold-plated metal brackets. Radiance Orthodontics will happily accommodate any such customized requests, if it is at all possible.
Dr. J says that Invisalign, which uses a series of invisible, removable, comfortable aligners to straighten teeth, is a constantly improving method that is now so effective, it often works more quickly than traditional braces.
Fancy television commercials may say that âdo-it-yourselfâ options can work just as well, but Dr. J emphasizes that having treatment in person with an orthodontist provides you with access to an expert who will check your progress every step of the way to keep you on track and watch to ensure no problems develop or worsen.
Radiance Orthodontics uses an iTero scanner to capture images of the teeth and gums. This means no more goop in your mouth to create impressions. Instead, Dr. Jureyda or an orthodontic assistant will use a compact, hand-held wand and optical digital technology to create 3D images of a patientâs mouth. It takes just a couple of minutes, and the process can be stopped and started as many times as necessary if a patient experiences any discomfort.
Dr. J says itâs much more comfortable and easy than taking impressions the old-fashioned way, and streamlines the process of moving from diagnosis to treatment. Patients can view their âbeforeâ images immediately on the screen during the appointment, and a proposed âafterâ image comes via email shortly after.
In between, Dr. J takes time to carefully review exactly how the technology recommends the teeth be moved into position, using his decades of experience to be sure that each of his patients receives a treatment plan that is perfect for them. While the technology adds some degree of automation, it doesnât replace his careful eye and expertise throughout the process.
Dr. Jâs patients say the best thing about coming to Radiance Orthodontics is the way they are treated as a friend. In fact, he encourages anyone interested in learning more about his practice to Google it and read the reviews.
âIt warms my heart that every single review anyone has ever posted about Radiance Orthodontics has been five stars,â says Dr. Jureyda. âI strive to treat all of my patients in a way that shows them the gratitude I have that they are entrusting me with their care.â
Dr. Sam Jureyda
You will never feel rushed in Dr. Jureydaâs office. He is genuinely interested in his patientsâ lives and families, and wants to ensure that treatments in his office fit each patientâs lifestyle and are comfortable and easy for them.
He takes time to answer every question, even those that come from the tiniest patients. âHe made my 5-year-old comfortable and even took time to answer some of her funny questions,â a recent Google review by M. Haloua stated.
While Dr. Jureyda prefers to take a proactive approach to treatment, rather than wait until all of a young patientâs teeth come in to deal with problems, itâs because early intervention is typically simpler and smaller than a full treatment later.
The American Association of Orthodontists actually recommends that all children have an orthodontic consultation by the age of seven to identify any potential issues as early as possible and to keep an eye on them as teeth develop. Dr. J encourages parents to take advantage of his free consultation, and he will never recommend treatment that isnât necessary.
Supporting Education
As a former educator, Dr. Jâs passion is for children and their contributions to the community. He is an avid supporter of students and teachers, working in cooperation with all of New Tampaâs public schools as a business partner. For the past three years, Radiance Orthodontics has awarded a scholarship each spring to a Wharton High senior who has demonstrated a commitment to serve the community through volunteering.
He knows how difficult it can be to work orthodontic appointments into a familyâs already-busy schedule, so some evening and occasional Saturday appointments are available.
Radiance Orthodontics also works with patients to determine orthodontic benefits through dental insurance and will provide affordable payment options for treatment.
To schedule a free consultation, text or call Radiance Orthodontics at (813) 972-1100 or see the ad on page 5 of this issue. For more information about the practice, located at 17427 Bridge Hill Ct., Suite A, in the Tampa Palms Professional Center, search for âRadiance Orthodonticsâ on Facebook or visit MyRadianceBraces.com.
